I came to Los Angeles in April, 2015. Since then, I’ve been getting used to culture and life style here, however, it took a long time to get used to driving here especially on freeways.
First of all, when I was in Japan, though I had my driver license, I never really drove because I could use subways and trains anywhere in Tokyo. However, here in Los Angeles, I have to drive to basically anywhere so I had to get used to it as soon as possible. It was very stressful for me at the beginning because everything is opposite from Japan where they drive on left side of roads. …
In Los Angeles, local roads are fine because everyone doesn’t drive aggressively generally but things are different on freeways. Many people drive more aggressively and really fast like racing cars (for me, maybe not for them). I usually see at least a few crazy drivers who drive like mad every time when I drive on freeways. Not only crazy cars but also I often see disabled cars on the roadside.
Also freeways here have so many lanes like sometimes 8 lanes on one way unlike freeways in Japan. Especially when I didn’t know about L.A. geographically and I had no idea which way I was heading, just being on freeways was intimidating.
Another thing about roads here is that every freeway entrance or exit is different and it’s easy to miss it if you are not familiar with the road.
Also heavy traffic jam is another thing. Driving to the airport from where I live is 40 minutes without the traffic but it becomes 1 hour and 30 minutes when I’m stuck in the traffic.
However, if you drive further from Downtown L.A., usually the traffic gets better and it’s actually nice to drive because of the nice weather here.
Have a nice trip and drive safely!